Can Anyone Truly Be Atheist or Just Agnostic?

[sneez]

"I don't think anyone can truly be an athiest without faith, IOW"

Absolutelly Rev.

 

[Evo]

"I don't think anyone can truly be an athiest without faith, IOW"

Absolutelly Rev.

I disagree. Here is the dictionary explanation of "faith" from Meriam-Wester

a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God

(2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion

b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof

(2) : complete trust

3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs

Aetheists do no fall into any of these categories.

Aetheists have no belief in something for which there is no proof You will not find this in the definition above of faith.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I disagree. Here is the dictionary explanation of "faith" from Meriam-Wester

a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God

(2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion

b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof

(2) : complete trust

3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs

Aetheists do no fall into any of these categories.

Aetheists have no belief in something for which there is no proof You will not find this in the definition above of faith.

More definitions of faith...

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.

It would seem that having a belief that "god" does not exist when there is no proof would require some form of faith. Logically without faith in "god's" lack of existence you could then only, honestly, be agnostic. There is no proof (no knowledge) and so no means to decide.
I don't get why people want to argue whether or not being an atheist requires faith. I have a very atheist friend who will fully admit that his belief requires faith since there is no proof.

 

[Math Is Hard]

If someone is a "true atheist" does that mean that he/she believes that the statement "God does not exist" is necessarily true in the same way that "Round squares do not exist" is necessarily true? It seems that there is a level of 100% certainty required in the first statement that would be difficult for anyone to assert.
"True theists" would face the same problem. "God exists" must be necessarily true to them, or appear to be true in all possible worlds, to the extent that saying "God does not exist" would produce a logical contradiction.
I don't think either side has a good case for 100% certainty.

 

[<<<GUILLE>>>]

You are right that religions created! dogma. However, you are wrong in the assumption that religion aims at that. Pppl did that to the religion . Neverthelless dogma is in religions by human desires not by nature. But atheist will not escape that easy either. They too have dogma and traditions. I come from a country that is called the paradise for atheist. The system is absolutelly atheistic and that affects progams in tv, education, work place relations, etc. WHat i see in this is dogma, there was even a time when religion was prohibited completely.

So therefore creating (artifitially) atheist from child to adult, ie, set of beliefs with rules and regulations enforced by authority => "religion" ?. THerefore I am comfortable calling atheism a belief system comparable to the theistic notion of religion.

Unfortunatelly i must disagree with you that atheism does not create believe of god's un-existance. I does and it is highly exploitable by ppl. I agree with you that not all atheist if put in power are going to enslave humanity into some atheistic dogma but there are certain ppl who will do so and entire nations (Russia) were beaton to death by atheistic dogma.

What country are you referring to as the "atheists paradise"?

You are confusing law or moral (in the filosofical context) statements with dogma.

At a first loook they might seem the same, but no. Dogmas are religion statements that are to be followed and un-broken to be a correct believer.

Atheism doesn't have statements to be followed, atheists are free, can't you stop and read for a moment the posts of many atheists in this thread. Some are atheist that believe that there is no god for no empirical prove, there are atheist that believe there is no god because its illogical, there are atheist that believe there is a god but not to be followed by religion or theology, there are agnostica theist that believe there isn't a god but that they can't prove it...

Comparing, in all cases you have to follow the fact that god exist. But not only that, but in religions they HAVE to follow the dogmas and HAVE to believe they are correct and obey them. If not, you would be called a heretic or blasfemer...But in atheism, you wouldn't.

Resuming, atheism is a (meaning no) theism. not a (meaning one of the) theism.

 

[<<<GUILLE>>>]

"I don't think anyone can truly be an athiest without faith, IOW"

Absolutelly Rev.

You are complicating things.

I am an atheist but I don't have the faith that god doesn't exist. I just have as a basis the lack of god's emprical prove. You may said that god can't be proven empirically, but If it can't, I will never believe in him/her/it. If there WOULD be emprical prove for god's existence, (don't post that the tipical things like "he is around you" "look every where" "look at the good things" "and you will be looking at god"...) then I would bleieve in god.


but there isn't.

And it is not about dis-proving god, but about proving him.

 

[sneez]

Prove empirically love. How do i konw that I am in love ? And let's stay in the empirical world. (serious explanation only ).

What country it is is not important (but try google and you will not miss it). No i don't think that moral and phylosophical can be confused. Or do we have moral empirical proove ? WHy to be moral. If i don't want to! Who is forcing me? society? I want to steel and lie and have excees of alcohol and sex and money, that's what i want to strive for. Why is society putting all these rules ? Its from phylosophy. Look how it evolved...

What do you mean, if you are atheist you have to believe that there is no god. Or do you have certain knowledge (empirical) that you can tell me look god does not exists and i show you evidence. OK. so it is believe like Rav pointed out. And atheism is not synonymous to freedom. I have been living in communist country ruled by dogmatical atheism which i explained in above post. It has DOGMA in the same sense as religion. Or who is to stop me in no following certain practices imposed on believers and still calling my self believer? It just ppl who have some agenda who will call me non-believer but what matters is intention! Dogma and Dogama is the same, religious or atheistic. Both came from the need to manipulate ppl and both used the same techniquest. i.g. Early christians burned ppl who said that Earth is not the center of universe (even though it just migh be) becasue they feared some imagined consequences of loosing control over ppl. With the same token stalin killed milions of religious ppl for the same fear that they will undermin his system.

But regardless, belief is belief. Atheists unless they have proof for what they claim are belief based so are theist. I don't see how this issue can be about whos job is to prove or disprove god. (god cannot be either prooved or disprooved empirically [for a reason]).

sneez

 

[Dooga Blackrazor]

Faith in science is different from faith in religion. One is inherently more logical than the other, according to most scientific philosophy. However, one can not fully prove that God doesn't exist - that being said, one cannot prove Santa Claus doesn't exist, but we can induce with a high level of certainty (over 99%) that he isn't real.

Concerning God, one must support Agnosticism to be truly philosophical; however, there is also "Agnostic Atheism" - the belief that we cannot know whether God exist, but we can assume, with a high probability, that he doesn't.

While I am Agnostic Atheist, Isaac Asimov has a good argument for Strong Atheism:

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."

 

[loseyourname]

Prove empirically love. How do i konw that I am in love ? And let's stay in the empirical world. (serious explanation only ).

You experience the feeling of being in love. That's what empiricism is - the epistemological stance that one will only believe what can be confirmed through experience. As the poster you are responding to has presumably never experienced anything that compelled him to believe in the existence of God, he does not believe. What's so wrong with that?

 

[sneez]

Nothing is wrong with that, does love not exists if i do not experience it? Like i said, some ppl claim that they experience god at some level? Whats wrong with that?

But the original post was about atheism being a belief. Which none of you could not disprove. The same arguments you present i can use to justify belief in god.

Dont confuse that I am trying to prove that belief in god is the right way. I am just saying that it is the same at the core.

Back to Isaak Asimove. (this is not meant religiously) Moses was prophet and said that god exists... nothing new in the argument. Atheism/Theism --so far i have to regard them as beliefs.

 

[Jameson]

The "experience" of love is far different than the abstract concept of it. If you are merely talking about how you feel when you are with someone you romantically love, then that can easily be explained through chemical processes, not through faith nor some kind of magic. There are many definitions of love, and to dwell on this would be off topic from the main idea of this post, but I must say that this is a common example of how faith is supposedly something we all live by, and I personally just find it a bad example.

Jameson

EDIT: loseyourname already addressed this. way to go.

 

[Jameson]

Early christians burned ppl who said that Earth is not the center of universe (even though it just migh be)

sneez - I don't understand what you are trying to say. Are you calling the Earth the center of the universe, or even saying that the universe has a center at all? And if the universe has a center, are you for or against some form of the big-band theory?

 

[sneez]

Well, how can we tell? It means i do konw if Earth is the center of the universe neither any human as of right now. We have theories which one of them indeed considers a place of observer the center of the universe.

I meant nothing more nothing less by it.

That was exactly my point. Many times (mostly teenagers) think that they are in love while all they experience is chemical processes with hormones. But as you pointed out there is no simple definition of love. We cannot even define it (of cause for everyday use we have webster) but from phylosophical point of view from the "begining" of humanity love is being captoured into songs, poems, buildings etc but we cannot tell if some one is in love only that person knows it.

sneez

 

[Jameson]

Right, only that person can claim that he or she has those feelings and that he or she is in a certain state of love, whatevery that may be. I think I see your point from your original point, that something does not exist because some believe it or not, it exists alone without belief. I agree with you on this and it's a valid point.

The main point I wish to express here is how an atheist takes a different approach than someone who chooses to believe in some kind of god. I have heard many times that "everyone has faith, even the atheist. the atheist must have faith in their belief of no god". I would like to point out as previous posters have that "faith" is a word that many take differently. I do not believe faith is a way to know something, while a belief in God relies on it faith being a way to have knowledge. For those who do not believe in God, they do not have faith in it, any more than they have faith that we really exist in this world, we are not in The Matrix, blah blah. Many people do not justify the world through this type of faith, and I think it is unfair to claim that they do.

Why do people with strong faith in the supernatural try to logically justify their beliefs? If the beliefs were justifiable in that way, I would think faith would not be needed.

 

[sneez]

"Why do people with strong faith in the supernatural try to logically justify their beliefs? If the beliefs were justifiable in that way, I would think faith would not be needed."

That is correct. They should not unless one asks them, but on the other hand that does not mean that it is illogical to have faith. As an example: If you would ask me why do i love my wife after 50 years of marriage? i would tell you ," you would not understand". Its all the seconds of intense intra and inter psychological interactions the bad and the good the happy etc (if you know what i mean) i could not just tell you and even if i had the time to explain you it is not the same because it was my life spent with her not yours. Is it illogical for you to tell me that i stil love one woman ? I even may not have any logical justification for that (maybe she died already) and i stil love her. (I hope i made my point).

It just might be similar to faith.

As far as atheistic faith goes its not faith per se. It does not start with faith (but neither does belief in god start with faith). Faith is an end result of long process. SO not every theist or atheist have to have faith in what he beliefs, but if i claim with the stronges claims that there is not god than i don't see difference between a guy who claims the opposite. They cannot possibly resolve this issue. Its matter of belief.

waiting for constructive argument

sneez

 

[gonpost]

I think that though some people may believe they are completely and truly athiest, that is not the case. I have yet to see a man whom when faced with death does not beg for God's help (however you may define who/what God is), or if he has time, completely change his attitude about faith. I'm not saying that God exists, just that no one could ever be a complete athiest, thus there are only varying degrees of agnosticism.

*first post*

 

[Humber]

I think that though some people may believe they are completely and truly athiest, that is not the case. I have yet to see a man whom when faced with death does not beg for God's help (however you may define who/what God is), or if he has time, completely change his attitude about faith. I'm not saying that God exists, just that no one could ever be a complete athiest, thus there are only varying degrees of agnosticism.

*first post*

Gongpost, how many men have you seen beg for God's help in the manner you describe?
I would describe myself as a "true atheist", and have found myself in several life-threatening situations, but did not call upon God. You will simply have to take my word for that.
When I say to people that I am an atheist, the reply is often "So you don't believe in God, then?". It is not a matter of disbelief. I simply see no evidence for God.
Just because religion has put forward the idea of God, does not mean that I have to respond to it in a way that is acceptable to the faithful.
There is no agnosticism involved. God is a simply not an issue for me. I am not denying something that I think might "really" be true, but does not fit my publicly declared scientific viewpoint, and therefore likely to be recanted when I am in a tight spot.

 

[loseyourname]

Yeah, I came pretty close to death twice and never begged for anyone's help. In fact, I had an odd sense of complete apathy. I didn't care at all. I never imagined I would be that accepting. How many people have you actually witnessed face to face with death, Gon?